


What did you do to be loved? (Please, give me the answer)

by DefinitelyNotStraight



Series: We Know Our Names, We Are Free [2]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bad Parent Maleficent (Disney), Child Abuse, Djinni & Genies, Evie & Jay & Mal & Carlos de Vil as Found Family, Fae & Fairies, Fae Mal (Disney), Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Isle of the Lost (Disney), Isle of the Lost (Disney) is a Terrible Place, United States of Auradon (Disney) Is Not Perfect, Witch Evie (Disney)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26932516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefinitelyNotStraight/pseuds/DefinitelyNotStraight
Summary: Auradon confuses the Core Four.Family Day goes differently, and the Four go feral.
Relationships: Evie & Jay & Mal & Carlos de Vil
Series: We Know Our Names, We Are Free [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1962541
Comments: 6
Kudos: 265





	What did you do to be loved? (Please, give me the answer)

**Author's Note:**

> Jesus H Christ, this got angstier than intended.   
> Be safe, enjoy???

Auradon was confusing. They had known that it would be, but things just didn't make any sense here.   
The Fairy Godmother looked upon her daughter with pride for even just walking into a room, and the love she felt for the shy girl was so evident.   
The VKs watched it closely, unable to comprehend. What had Jane done that was so great that she was constantly showered in love that the girl didn't even seem to understand was a gift.   
It didn't make sense, and Mal watched Evie's hands clench when she watched Fairy Godmother tell her daughter that she was beautiful inside and that mattered more than any kind of outer beauty. She watched the little witch press her nails into her wrists like her mother had, looked like she might vomit because that couldn't be true. It went against everything the Evil Queen had drilled into Evie, who had been forced to sit in front of a mirror for hours with her mother and point out every single imperfection until she was sobbing and her head was pounding with pain. 

Jay watched the team talk about their families, Carlos ever beside him, behind him. Hiding from these bigger boys with fists that looked too much like his mother's for the witch/fae/human-hybrid to cope with. Only Jay's steady presence kept him from freaking out, which is why they always occupied the corner of the Tourney changing rooms.   
Chad was chatting to Ben and one of the son's of Ariel - Alastair, his name is. Something stupid, about how they had played catch in their gardens with their fathers. Jay listened incredulously, hearing about how Ben had accidentally thrown the ball too hard and broken his father's nose.   
Jay tensed, waiting for Ben to tell of the beating he had gotten for that. The starvation, the branding like Jafar did to him with hot irons (because Djinn count as Fae and everyone knows how much iron hurts them).   
It never came. The prince laughed about how his mother had shrieked about blood on the carpets and his father had told him to save the energy for real games instead of "breaking his fragile old dad, ey sport?"  
What the fuck? Jay had no other thoughts, just cuss words and confusion and he could feel Carlos shrinking back too.   
If they had accidentally broken their parents' noses, they would have been burnt and broken beyond recognition. 

They watch Lonnie's eyes fill with tears when they stay quiet, angry and broken, after she tells them that "even villains love their kids".   
No, no they don't. They love what the kids can do for them, otherwise they wouldn't have survived infancy. That much, they know.   
The girl's tears drip down unscarred cheeks as she clutches the bowl of chocolate chips, and Jay takes it from her, passing the remaining sweets to Carlos.  
They have an unspoken agreement that the younger boy gets all the sweets they can steal for him. His eyes light up as if he's an Auradon child when he tastes sugar on his tongue and they desperately wish that he could have had this, instead of what they were dealt by fate.  
(By King Adam, who chose to imprison infants like animals without an ounce of guilt).   
(How they want to tear the man's eyes out for Carlos. For Dizzy. For the baby Smee twins. For Celia. For Anthony and Maddy and Diego and for Harry and for Gil. Even for Uma. They didn't deserve this. They were children. Children made of magic tortured by a barrier that aimed to eradicate the thing they were made from.)  
\---------------------------  
Audrey was greeted by her mother and grandmother with doting kisses and hands caressing hair with no intention of dragging her around by it.   
The VKs watched, and felt something hot and ugly fill them. It was green like Mal's eyes and they knew it was jealousy.  
They distracted themselves and lead Carlos to the chocolate fountain, selfishly drinking up his glee and the light in his eyes because it is the closest to happiness that they will ever get.   
Mal wanders off to Ben, who beams at her like she is the sun, and the fae's three friends want that for her. Their Mal (their Aurora) deserves to be looked at as if she is something precious, by someone other than themselves.   
Evie watches, Dude in her arms and his furry head tucked under her chin, as Ben calls Mal over to introduce to his parents. She seems the tightness of King Adam's face in displeasure (how she aches to poison that man, for how he looks at the girl who saved her life, for how he condemned them all). Her magic itches to lash out, it surges under her skin and she stares at her scarred wrists, watching already blue veins glow brighter, the colour of bluebell flowers and that ring around Mal's pupil.   
She breathes, forces it down, let's it fester and burn in her stomach, watches Mal tuck into Ben's side and aches because Mal deserves to be treated like a princess and all of this is just a trick, and oh, how she wishes it would be true for them.   
A lady approaches Mal, and Evie's magic screams at her, using her name (danger, Venus, danger, save Mal, save your Fae) but she doesn't know what the threat is and she knows she can't blow this for them. So she watches, her hand in her bag with the sleeping perfume potion, ready to knock everyone here out. She unweaves her braids with the other hand, setting Dude down, sigil-threaded leather and ribbons coming loose and she ties them around her fists.  
Jay notices, and he shrugs off his suffocating suit jacket, and Carlos reaches for the knife that has not left his pocket since Jay gave it to him when he was a tiny little kid.   
"What is it, Venus?" Jay murmurs, half Djinni and half English, and she has long since learnt to understand it.   
"Danger, Jadiel." She replies in kind, watching him relax just a little when his true name is uttered by someone who adores him, rather than by someone who wants to abuse him.   
They watch Mal talk to the old lady, then their hackles rise along with Mal's when Audrey moves over, clasping the woman's hands and her face twisting into a sneer.  
Carlos let's out a growl that is entirely fae and his steps vibrate for only them to feel as he edges closer, Jay grabbing his arm and hissing at him to stay back for know.  
("Calm, Cathal. We cannot ruin this.") Carlos deflates with his true name and he burrows between the witch and the djinn, still baring teeth and hand around the hilt of his blade because Mal might need him and the Faerie in him screams at him to slash apart anyone who harms his kin, the half-fae who shares the thirst for the forest he has.  
He felt Evie moving, knowing she has curses on her tongue, and feels Jay shaking in order to contain the rage of the Djinn that wants to rip up this society that lead to it being trapped.  
Djinni really do not like being trapped.   
"Her first words, her first steps. I missed it all! You mustn't trust her. Remember the poison apples?" The lady, who they hear Ben call Queen Leah, screams and clutches at Fairy Godmother.   
Fairy Godmother does not defend Mal, who is shaking and teary, and the VKs move to her, taking her hands and keeping any of the supposed heroes from even reaching her.   
Mal is furious as much as she is in agony, but then Chad butts in, and he gets too close to their smallest. His hand touches Carlos' chest, and the villain kids lose it.  
Chad is drugged by Evie and thrown away from them by Jay, whose eyes burn the red of the djinn his father had been and his skin is pulsing with the power beneath his skin that he has never been allowed to feel before. Carlos is behind Evie, who is spitting curses and letting blue magic so much darker than is common for her fly about them.   
King Adam is closing in, and Mal's sharp teeth bare in an intimidation that makes everyone stop.  
The man stands beside Queen Leah, with his wife and their supposed good fairy who is allowing the children she is supposed to welcome and protect be demonized by these prissy people as their parents had been.  
Under their condemning gaze, Carlos understands maybe why his mother and their parents went mad with hate.   
Mal lets the glamours she has around her crew fall, and Jay feels eyes draw to the scars across his arms which are bare now, having thrown his jacket.   
He watches them look to Evie, taking in how much thinner she still is without the veil of Mal's magic, sees Jane and Queen Belle take in scars the shape of finger nails and canes across wrists and palms of small hands that belong to a child.   
"I don't feel sorry for you." Mal spits at the elderly queen, and the assembly gasps in indignation. Even now, with their scars on display, they are still the evil ones.   
But Mal isn't finished.   
"Your daughter was safe, she was not harmed, she was happy. Do you think Maleficent, the great evil you defeated, was a good mother? That she loved? The Evil Queen? Jafar? Cruella De Ville?" Mal spat out, and the djinn in Jay basked in the uncomfortable aura that arose from the crowd.  
"We're evil, aren't we? That's what you tell us, what the Fairy Godmother has been allowing the children to tell us within her hearing. We're just the product of our parents, we must be evil." Carlos scoffed, finally, finally angry, eyes blazing the fae green that matches Mal's and he feels so much sick pleasure when they flinch from him.   
"You know what is evil, your highness?" Evie is soft, but her voice cuts through everything, and her body is cracking with magic so dark it's almost black.   
"Locking away infants with villains. Condemning babies to be brought up by those who tortured your own children. Jay's father likes to brand him with hot irons when he fails to steal anything of significant worth. Cruella likes to put out her cigarettes on Carlos' throat and bleach his hair until his scalp bleeds so that he resembles the only thing she loves - the fur of puppies she wants to skin. Mal was born with wings, did you know that?"   
The King looks sick, Queen Leah is absolutely green in the face, the princesses of Auradon are crying.   
Good, the witch thinks viciously, let them cry. They could cry for weeks and would not reach the amount of tears the children of Auradon have shed under the torture of their parents.   
"Wings?" Fairy Godmother asks, and Mal is trying not to throw up or cry because the Fairy is looking at her. The woman is a fae, even if she is not like Mal, and she has her own wings that she disguises with a glamour.   
"My mother cut them off when I was six years old. I got caught sneaking food to Evie, because the Evil Queen was starving her again." Mal tried to sound unbothered, but her voice broke and she curled into herself slightly, and her crew flinched as they remembered the nights they had to pin the fae to the floor while she screamed at the phantom pain in the wings she no longer had, remembered how she begged her mother in her sleep to allow her to keep her wings.  
The Fairy Godmother vomited into the grass, before fainting, caught by Alastair from Tourney.   
Queen Belle was staring at her husband who was frozen and staring at these damaged children.   
Finally, Jay lost it.   
"Are we evil, Adam? Are all those children on the Isle who scream and cry from the burn of the magic in their bodies that the barrier keeps tearing from them? Are they evil? Is little Dizzy Tremaine, who wants to be a dress designer and a hair dresser in Auradon, who has never tasted ice cream, evil? Is Uma, who used to wish to sail to distant lands with her crew and see the stars, evil? Look at them, and tell me these children are evil. Tell me!" He is screaming in the beast king's face now, shoving a picture of the little baby Smee twins into the man's chest.  
Mal is dragging the djinn boy away, Evie pulling Carlos from where he is yelling at Queen Leah.   
They don't turn their backs, they have long since learned that lesson.   
\------------------  
Mal bursts into tears as soon as they reach the boys' room, trying to reach behind her to touch wings that she lost so long ago. Jay is already sobbing, pinning the girl down so she can't tear into her already damaged back even more.   
Evie is warding the room, hissing protection spells that sound like curses, her magic still so dark from her rage.   
Carlos is sat on the floor, staring into the corner like he did on the Isle. They would not be able to reach him for a while, they knew. The psychology book that Mal has stolen from Facilier's library called it dissociation.   
They were alone, for a while, but Jay's enhanced hearing heard footsteps coming towards them, and he knew Mal heard too from how she stopped her thrashing and just sobbed into him, mourning the limbs she had lost to her own mother.   
Their door opens without a knock, and they are greeted by the Fairy Godmother, Queen Belle, Ben, Aurora and King Adam, along with Jane and Lonnie.   
"Are we able to talk to you?" Belle asks politely, and Evie moved to block the shattered form of Mal from their view, from where Jay is holding her and hiding his own tears in tresses of purple hair.   
"What about?" She asks evenly, her hands still wrapped up in leather and ribbons that ripple with the sheer amount of magic held in them.   
"We want to hear more about the Isle. We want to rescue those children." Aurora said softly, and Mal looked at her namesake with wide, bloodshot eyes.  
"You're going to save them?" She asked, incredulously, and Jay moves to stare at them too.  
"You were right, they don't deserve it. They aren't evil." Adam said, not meeting any eyes, and Jay's eyes burned into him.   
"No, we didn't. And now there's a whole generation of children out there who haven't ever had sugar, who have had poisoning from eating rotten food because that's all that's left, children who don't know what the stars look like. And you did that to us." He tells the king, and the king looks heartbroken.  
The kids can't find it in themselves to pity the man who subjected them to what had happened to them.   
"Mal, are you okay?" Fairy Godmother asks, and Mal curls into herself, trying to press into where her wings should be.   
"It hurts, Fairy Godmother." She whispers, a wounded sound that made Jay's throat constrict and ache because Mal had never sounded that pained in her life. She hadn't been allowed to.   
The fairy moved to Mal, pressed a palm into the centre of her back, and it glowed blue.   
The tension and pain drained from Mal, and Fairy Godmother looked teary as she explained that she can't stop the phantom pain completely.   
"Please. Please tell us, so we can save those children." Belle asked them, and the children looked at her.   
"What did Ben and Jane do?" Evie asked suddenly, and the Royals, the Godmother and the girl in question looked to the bluenette witch.   
"What do you mean, Evie?" Adam asked, and Evie felt tears welling for the first time.   
"What did they do to make you love them? Did they save a Kingdom? Let me know what I did wrong." She begged, and the royals entered the room, but it was Aurora who reached out to brush a hand across the apple of Evie's cheek.   
"They didn't do anything. They're our children, we love them unconditionally." Fairy Godmother told them, and the witch fell to the floor, sobbing, because her mother didn't love her, and there was nothing she could do about that. 

"Our parents sent us here to steal Fairy Godmother's wand. They said they'd hurt us if we didn't."   
Carlos, and the VKs scramble to cover the boy in blankets and feed him chocolate that they had stashed everywhere because he was always cold and weak after his dissociative episodes.   
Mal was not mad he spilled their plan, and she watched the adults think that over before nodding.  
"Tell us about the Isle, and we will make sure that you never have to go back, and we'll rescue the kids too." Belle tells them, and Mal casts her gaze on the faerie in the room.  
They are not the same breed, but they are similar enough.  
"Do you promise that we'll be free, and so will the Isle kids?" She asks the fae, who nods.  
"I promise." Those words have magic, and Mal relaxes finally.  
And so they begin to talk, holding nothing back.


End file.
